


an odd form of trust

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: Director Alex Danvers doesn’t like going to the medbay with her injuries.





	an odd form of trust

Director Alex Danvers doesn’t like going to the medbay with her injuries.

 

Director Alex Danvers doesn’t like going to the medical bay after taxing missions. Every DEO intern manning the wards knows that, and every intern worth their salt also knows not to argue the issue with her. Indeed, the only person capable of making her relent on this policy seems to be Supergirl, and even she doesn’t seem willing to argue the point with Director Danvers anymore.

 

\--

 

It’s not that Alex doesn’t trust the expertise of the doctors in the medbay. It’s not even out of some misplaced sense of pride of inferiority, like she’d used to be plagued with in her earlier years under Kara’s shadow.

 

The reason is simpler: her vulnerability to injuries will just be one more tool used by the people in the DEO who already think she’s too young to have been promoted to her position. Too young, too inexperienced, and too a whole lot of other things that they know better than to say out loud, even though Alex has more critical missions under her belt that any of the runner ups that J’onn had considered for the position. 

 

So, she grits through the pain or she hides in her office and try to tend to it herself, but she’s damned if she’ll visit the medbay and give the naysayers another thing to gossip back to the Pentagon backbenchers about.

 

\--

Director Danvers doesn’t like to be seen to at the medbay, but it remains a mystery to the DEO interns as to what she does otherwise. Because, everytime she gets injured on a mission, the director disappears into her third floor office. When she returns, her injuries are seen to, and her wounds perfectly cleaned and stitched up.

 

\--

The third time Alex disappears into her office after a critical injury, Astra knocks and enters quietly, heading straight for the first aid kit nailed to Alex’s wall when she’s let in.

 

Alex tracks her movement, and sighs. Back when he had been around, even J’onn had been easy to distract, to get around a trip to the medbay. It’s harder to fool a woman with lasers for eyes.

 

“Injuries from Traddons tend to fester,” Astra says. “They need to be cleaned up thoroughly before being treated. Otherwise, the venom will eat away at the stitches.”

 

This first time, Alex’s doesn’t really know why she undoes the latches on her uniform, and shows her injury to a woman who had once been her adversary, except for the logical fact that Astra could kill her in a heartbeat if she chooses to, without any of this maneuvering and with Kara being none the wiser. It’s the sort of the thing that would have made no sense to her before she joined the DEO, but perfect sense after seven years of being a soldier.

 

\---

 

Nowadays, it’s simply a matter of routine between them, Alex getting so used to it that she doesn’t even think about it. She gets injured, she heads to her office, and sooner or later, Astra shows up.

 

Astra works with the efficiency of someone used to tending to her own wounds, although not with the level of skill that Alex’s training has made her used to. Still, it’s better than being chewed out by the medbay nurses in front of her subordinates.

 

This time, most of the injury is on Alex’s back, the most garish being a horizontal sickle slice that had torn through the hardened fabric of her tac suit. Other than a slight intake of breath when she first sees the gore of it, Astra cleans and stitches it up with her usual laconic efficiency.

 

When she finishes, just for a second, Alex can feel the palm of her hand splay gently over the stitching, barely touching it, though the heat of contact permeates. Alex twitches, almost overcome by a sudden urge to turn around and sink into the strong body behind her, to feel those hands encircling her properly. It’s stupid and momentary, she knows, a reaction brought on by a mixture of proximity and exhaustion. But, it’s so strong for a moment that fighting it leaves her breathless.

 

She forces the urge down, and turns around to face Astra instead, voicing something that has been running through months quite often recently.

 

“You don’t heal like Kara.”

 

\---

Astra was supposed to be dead, when they had found her languishing in one of the abandoned Cadmus experimentation house, two years ago.

 

She was supposed to be dead, first by Alex’s sword, and then from all the experimentation Cadmus had put her through, but somehow the stubborn alien had clung to life. Sometimes, Alex wonders if she’d even wanted to.

 

\---

 

“You don’t heal like Kara.”

 

Astra doesn’t resist, as Alex zips down her uniform halfway, to reveal her chest. The sight of it has some urge flickering inside Alex again, but she’s immediately distracted by the scar that accosts her sight in plain view. It’s a perfect diagonal discolouration through supposedly invulnerable Kryptonian skin. When Alex raises out a finger to trace it, she realizes that the skin around the area is still raised, like a series of tiny bubbles of tissue. There’s a sickly paleness to the entire area, underlined by veins of green translucence running beneath the skin. It makes Alex’s heart twist. 

 

“Kal did the best he could for my injuries,” Astra says. “But, even he couldn’t do much without a regeneration matrix. Not all of the kryptonite shards could be removed, without risking permanent damage to my heart.”

 

Alex‘s hand retreats. She isn’t sure what to say. “Sorry” seems hollow and meaningless. 

 

She says it anyway.

 

\---

A few chaotic months after they rescue her from Cadmus, Astra becomes a tentative ally to the DEO, urged mostly by a desire to see Kara protected from harm. Tentative ally turns into regular help, which eventually turns into trusted advisor. Then, strangely, she becomes someone Alex can call a friend.

 

Alex can’t track down how precisely they get there. They go from being reluctant allies to willing teammates before she fully realizes the fact. They go from being teammates to friends before she realizes that, too. Then, Alex is up at 3am on a routine late night stakeout, murmuring some personal story from her childhood to an attentive Astra next to her, before she realizes that the woman had gone from friend to confidante.

 

She doesn’t exactly mind it being such an untraceable and unexpected trajectory. Not when everything else in her life these days involves the exercise of so much control and planning.

 

\---

“I’m sorry. Whatever else you deserved, however angry we were at each other, this wasn’t something I wanted to do to you.”

 

Astra frowns down at the scar Alex had been studying, as if seeing it anew in the light of her words.

 

“But, I like it.”

 

Alex stares at her. 

 

“I like it,” Astra repeats, fleetingly touching the spot where Alex’s hand had been, before zipping her uniform back up in a decisive manner. “It’s a reminder. On this planet... I’d gotten used to acting without consequences. It’s easier to hurt someone when you won’t face injuries for it yourself. It makes you lose discipline.”

 

She’s talking to herself, but Alex swallows, seeing herself reflected in the words. What's that thing about great power and responsibility, again? She'd run up against that wall more than once, even as a DEO agent, let alone as the director.

 

“You could have killed me without getting a scratch on yourself,” she says. “You didn’t.”

 

Astra's eyes soften.

 

“You think I'm more innocent than I am,” she says. “I didn't exercise such restraint on Krypton, or all the years when I stood by Non.”

 

Alex sinks to her knees, so that she has to look up at Astra seated on the chair, without care for her injury. Astra catches her by the waist halfway through the fall, before lowering her slowly the rest of the way down.

 

“I just put in those stitches, and you’re already trying to break them.”

 

“Shut up,” Alex murmurs, sinking into the crook of Astra’s shoulder. She closes her eyes, tired enough that she’s unsure if she’ll be opening them any time soon. “I’m too tired to argue this again.”

 

“Who was arguing?” comes Astra’s idle answer, before she too falls silent and still, the only movement being that of Alex breathing into her skin.

 

It’s quiet for some time, during which Alex is lulled into a state of half-sleep, before Astra breaks the silence.

 

“Do you want me to fly you home? It sounds like your deputy is already setting up for the afternoon shift, and there was an accident on the highway you usually take.”

 

“Wuh?” Alex looks up, and shakes her head to get rid of the sleep, before the question registers. “Oh, um...”

 

Sometimes, after missions where she has to be around people the whole night, a day spent alone in her apartment is heaven to look forward to. Just her, a queue of shows lined up to binge, and her phone on silent. 

 

Right now, though, with Astra in front of her, the thought of another slow afternoon by herself doesn’t seem so appealing.

 

“Um,” she bites her lips, and stares at Astra, wishing not for the first time that the woman could be a little more readable in her wants and intentions. “What would you say about going out somewhere for the evening?”

 

\---

The most exhausting thing about Kryptonians is that they never do anything halfway. Kara is like that, and Astra turns out to be like that, too. Which means that when she finally makes up her mind to cooperate with humans, and familiarize herself with Earth, she goes off the deep end about it, just as Kara had years ago.

 

She flies around everywhere, visits everything. It’s hell for the DEO agents assigned to track her movements, although J’onn turns a blind eye to their complaints. Alex suspects it’s out of guilt for Astra’s Cadmus ordeal, and it’s something she herself shares - only more acutely - so she can’t even blame him for it.

 

One time, though, in the summer, Astra rounds her and Kara up, and flies them up to Aurora. That far north, the northern lights are out in full force, though Astra refers to them by another name, something in Kryptonese obscure enough that Alex doesn’t catch it. 

 

The sight, though, is simply beautiful, through the eyes of any species, Kryptonian or Earthling.

 

\--

 

“What would say to going out somewhere for the afternoon?”

 

Astra blinks slowly at Alex’s question, before understanding dawns.

 

“Of course, you must be hungry, after being out all night on the mission.”

 

Alex purses her lips, internally bemoaning not for the first time that Kryptonians can be so smart about some things and so incredibly  _ stupid  _ about others.

 

“Nooooo.” She draws the word out slowly. “Well, yes, I am hungry, but then I could just get something for myself. What I mean is that I want to go somewhere, and get something with  _ you _ .”

 

Understanding redawns, and from the smile that curls Astra’s lips, which goes from tentative to confident rather quickly, Alex is pretty sure she’s gotten her point this time.

 

\----

 

In the end, Astra doesn’t take her anywhere fancy this time, like seeing the northern lights. Just a little café in a side street, that she had apparently found while wandering through National City.

 

They sit by the window that looks out into the street, sipping their drinks and idly waving to the dogs tied up outside. Astra ends up being a little too amused by the way Alex keeps blinking into the bright sunlight, unused to seeing it at this time of day. Alex gets her back by messing with her coffee order, although judging by the amount of sugar Astra had initially ordered to be put in her drink, she’s probably doing the woman a favour. (Alex seriously thinks Kryptonians would have died from diabetes, if the destruction of their planet hadn’t beat them to it.)

 

All in all, it’s an ideal first date.

 

\---


End file.
